Friday, September 30, 2016

On October
13, 2004 Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi demanded that the city of
Fallujah turn over Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or be attacked. At the time, it was
widely held that the leader of Tawhid wal Jihad was within Fallujah and was
using it as his command center. That is still
believed today. Tawhid was definitely within the city, but was Zarqawi?
According to several leaders within the organization he was not.

According to two leaders of Tawhid
wal Jihad, and a religious leader from Fallujah, Zarqawi was outside the city
during the entire Second Battle of Fallujah. First was Abu Anas al-Shami a
member of Tawhid wal Jihad’s central command and a leader within Fallujah. (1) Shami
wrote that Zarqawi wanted to be in the city to fight the Americans, but his
followers told him not to. Next was Abu Azzam al-Iraqi who was Tawhid wal
Jihad’s emir for Fallujah. He sent daily reports on the progress of the battle
through a courier who travelled by river to where Zarqawi was. Then there was
Abdallah al-Janabi one of the main religious leaders in Fallujah who helped run
the city. He repeatedly said that Zarqawi was not there. While Janabi might
have been trying to save his home from attack, that was not the case for Shami
and Iraqi. There was no reason for two Tawhid wal Jihad leaders to claim their
leader was not in the city in their personal correspondence and diaries. It
would appear that while Tawhid wal Jihad definitely took part in the Second
Battle of Fallujah, Zarqawi could have very well been an observer from the
outside.

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Roughly three months after Fallujah was freed the first
families have begun returning. In a carefully orchestrated event by Anbar
politicians, 14 families were welcomed back on September
14. There were three other families, but at the last minute they were declared
Islamic State sympathizers and rejected. People are supposed to go through five
different agencies to get authorization to enter Fallujah, but that process
appeared to be still a work in progress. Two days later Anbar Governor Suhaib
al-Rawi said that 40 families were back. The mayor of Fallujah claimed
500 had returned, but that was a bit of an exaggeration as that included the
surrounding towns.

These families are facing a similar situation as in Ramadi.
Like that city there are still unexploded bombs in large sections. There are
also no services like running water or electricity. The government did provide
water tanks and dried food. Despite that families interviewed by the media were
ecstatic
about being in their homes. Some were damaged, some had been occupied while
they were gone, but being back was a joyous occasion.

The authorities need to balance the desire of people to return,
their security, and their living conditions. Some families fled Fallujah in
January 2014, so they have been waiting a very long time, and must be putting
immense pressure on politicians to go back. Only parts of the northern section
of the city have been cleared of bombs, and that was where all the families
were settled. A similar situation occurred in Ramadi when people were allowed
in before it was fully cleared and around 100 people ended up dead and wounded
as a result. There is also the issue of reconciliation as the Islamic State
left behind a lot of resentment and mistrust against those that worked with the
militants. Those people are not supposed to be allowed back, but three of those
alleged families almost got in on the first day. Hopefully the government has
learned from that fiasco, but you never know. Finally, there is nothing in
Fallujah but the people’s domiciles. There are no services, jobs, businesses,
etc., and it will stay that way for the foreseeable future. That’s because the
government has no money to rebuild Fallujah because of its budget deficit. These
are the dilemmas facing all the every areas of Iraq, and there are no easy
resolutions to them.

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

The third quarter of 2015 saw a big surge in violence by the
Islamic State before a large drop off during the winter. Baghdad, Kirkuk,
Ninewa, and Salahaddin all saw increases in security incidents, while Anbar
witnessed a drop, and Diyala was unchanged.

There were a total of 2,042 security incidents recorded from
July to September 2015. That averaged out to 22.1 incidents per day. This burst
of violence was almost all due to attacks by the Islamic State rather than
fighting during government led operations. After that surge in the summer there
was a large dip in the winter. For the last quarter of the year there were
1,796 incidents, averaging out to 19.5. That was due to a large drop in attacks
in October and November, before going back up in December and January 2016.

Anbar was the only main battlefront that saw a decline in
incidents in the third quarter of 2015. They went from an average of 5.1 per
day in July to 4.7 in August to 3.6 in September. The government was busy
trying to clear the areas around Fallujah and Ramadi and the towns in between,
but the Islamic State didn’t seem to take them seriously otherwise there would
have been a large number of counterattacks. The violence was still intense with
57 car bombs and 6 suicide bombers. That meant the province was still one of
the deadliest in Iraq. From July to August 1,526 were reported dead, and 1,418
wounded. Government shelling and Iraqi and Coalition air strikes led to 511
fatalities with another 747 injured. The fact that there were more dead than
wounded recorded in this period was another sign that the authorities were
suppressing casualties.

Violence went up and down in Baghdad. There were 9.1
incidents in July, going down to 8.4 in August, only to increase to 9.8 by
September. That was a prelude to the huge increase in incidents that would be
seen in the 2015-2016 winter when there would be an average of 10-11 incidents
per day. That highlighted the shift in emphasis by the Islamic State from
conventional fighting to terrorism that would continue into the next year. At
the same time, the militants either lost resources or shifted them to other
theaters as there were 21 car bombs and 4 suicide bombers in July, going down
to 11 in August and 7 in September along with 3 suicide bombers. There would
not be 21 car bombs in Baghdad in one month again.

Diyala never really saw as much violence as the rest of the
country after the insurgents’ summer 2014 surge. In the 3rd quarter
of 2015 there were just around 1 incident per day. Most of those were shootings
and IEDs, but the Islamic State was trying mass casualty bombings a couple
times a month. In July for example, there were 6 car bombs including one in a
market in the middle of the month that caused 285 casualties. That was followed
by 5 more car bombs in August, with another in a market leaving 130 dead and
wounded. Finally, in September there were 3 vehicle bombs.

There was a slight surge in activity by the Islamic State in
Kirkuk from July to September. Incidents went from 0.6 per day in July to 1.4
in August to 1.0 in September. Violence then fell off in the winter to pick up
at the start of 2016. Most of those incidents were skirmishes with the
peshmerga. IS was also executing a large number of people in Hawija, which is
the last district in the province still under its control.

Ninewa was different from the other governorates in Iraq
because many of the reported incidents were executions by the Islamic State. It
as difficult to ascertain whether all of these actually happened or whether
they were propaganda as they mostly came from Kurdish papers connected to the
ruling parties. At the same time, residents, people who have fled, and IS’s only
propaganda have shown their harsh punishments for breaking their rules. From
July to August a total of 1,876 were killed, and 247 wounded. 1,407 of the
fatalities were executions. There were also 160 people found in mass graves.
Another 204 were reportedly killed in Coalition air strikes, and 167 injured.
There were also occasional attacks upon the peshmerga lines.

The number of attacks in Salahaddin were pretty much flat
from July to September. There were an average of 2.6 per day in July, 2.9 in
August, and 2.6 in September. Most of those took place in Baiji and its
refinery. During the quarter, the government forces consistently claimed they
had almost freed the area, only to launch a brand new operation immediately
afterward. Most of the victorious announcements were propaganda by various
Hashd groups. For example, in July one of the main Hashd spokesman claimed that
80% of the refinery was freed and then two days later Asaib Ahl Al-Haq said
only 40% was cleared. It wouldn’t be until October that the town and facility
was finally liberated. After that attacks in the province would steadily
decline up to the present day with only a few brief spurts of insurgent
activity.

During the quarter two car bombs were dismantled and
destroying in Karbala. Otherwise the Islamic State carried out no attacks in
all of southern Iraq. What violence that was reported in that region was
political, criminal, or tribal in nature.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

In the August 2016 edition of Perspectives
On Terrorism, Naval War College, Monterey Professor Crag Whiteside tried to
give an overarching framework for the Islamic State’s history. Whiteside argued
that IS can best be understood as a revolutionary group following the general
principles of Chairman Mao Zedong’s people’s war of building, expanding, and
then directly challenging the state.

Chairman Mao outlined his ideas about revolutionary warfare
based upon his overthrow of the Chinese government. Mao wrote that a people’s
war is a protracted political-military struggle based upon irregular units attempting
to take over the state. This goes through three broad phases. The first is the
building and preserving stage, then the expansion, and finally the decisive
phase when the state is directly challenged and overthrown. These three steps
are not set and based upon local conditions and the strength of the government.
It is also a long and drawn out war based upon recruiting and indoctrinating
cadre, gaining support of the population, and carrying out synchronized
political, economic, social, and psychological moves, not just military ones.
Terrorism was considered an integral part of the people’s struggle as it was
used to undermine society and the authority of the state, not to defeat the
enemy or acts of desperation.

The Islamic State adopted Mao’s ideas via the Syrian Abu
Musab al-Suri. Suri
was a leader amongst Syrian jihadists and went to Afghanistan to fight in the
war there. His book, Global Call for
Islamic Resistance which documented
previous jihads including the one against Hafez al-Assad was widely read in
Islamic circles including
by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. Suri talked about a revolutionary jihad and recited
Mao although not explicitly. Many of Suri’s ideas of creating a centralized and
compartmentalized political-military covert organization were incorporated by
Zarqawi into his Tawhid wal Jihad that would later become Al Qaeda in Iraq and
the Islamic State.

From 2002-2005 Zarqawi entered into Mao’s first phase of
building his group. Zarqawi started off with a very small group of foreign
fighters. His first goal was to expand and take over the Iraqi insurgency,
which consisted of Baathists, nationalists, and rival Islamists. Zarqawi came
up with 5 tactics: weaken the Iraqi government, recruit rival groups, play and
expand upon Sunni alienation with the new Iraq, provoke Shiite militias, and
convince the United States to withdraw. He also incorporated Mao’s ideas of
terrorism focusing upon headline grabbing bombings in 2003 rather than small
skirmishes and improvised explosive devices as other groups were doing. His first actions
occurred in August 2003 when Tawhid wal Jihad bombed the Jordanian embassy and
the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, and the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf. As
Mao argued these attacks were not meant to overthrow the U.S. occupation, but
they undermined the victory narrative Washington was pushing after the
overthrow of Saddam, and made the U.N. and other international groups and
foreign countries weary of operating in Iraq. By 2004 Zarqawi moved to targeted
assassinations with specific units carrying them out against militiamen, Iraqi
Islamic Party members, politicians, judges, and senior members of the Iraqi
Security Forces (ISF). At the end of the year, Zarqawi aligned with bin Laden
and changed the name of his organization to Al Qaeda in Iraq adding the
prestige of that group to his own, and opening up new revenue sources from
international donors. Mao also spoke of using contradictions in society to
mobilize the populace. Zarqawi used sectarianism to rally Sunnis to his cause.
He attacked Shiites to provoke their retaliation so that he could portray his
organization as the protectors of Sunnis, and helped lead to the Sunnis boycott
of the 2005 elections that further alienated the community form the new
political order. Finally, Zarqawi recruited Iraqi Salafis that had grown up
under Saddam. Under this first phase Zarqawi was widely successful. He became
the brand name behind the opposition to the U.S. occupation even though he was
not an Iraqi and his group was very small. He completely undermined the
Americans initial plans for Iraq by spreading violence and creating a
non-inclusive government, while forcing the U.N. and other organizations to
withdraw from Iraq at least temporarily. In the next step he and his successor
were not as successful.

From 2005-2007 Zarqawi and his successor Abu Omar
al-Baghdadi expanded Al Qaeda in Iraq, but faced a massive pushback from the
country’s Sunnis. In 2006, Al Qaeda in Iraq created the Mujahadeen Shura
Council to bring in other insurgent groups. Later that year the Islamic State
of Iraq (ISI) was announced. At the same time Zarqawi was killed in an American
bombing. He was replaced by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi whose plan was to appeal to
Iraqis, increase the military campaign, build the group’s organization, and
become self-sufficient financially. Zarqawi and Bahgdadi however, emphasized
the military effort more than politics, which created a backlash.
While the group was expanding its operations across the country, it was forcing
its ideas upon the populace rather than winning them over. The result was the
Anbar Awakening and the Sahwa that started in 2006 and quickly spread across
central Iraq in 2007 thanks to the support of the Americans. Those two
incorporated not only Sunni tribes, but other insurgent groups that had grown
tired of ISI’s violence, attempts to change Iraqi culture, and heavy
handedness. Together the Awakening, Sahwa, and U.S. were able to push ISI out
of most of its strongholds, and the group had to retreat.

2008-11 ISI returned to rebuilding under the leadership of
Omar al-Baghdadi. At the time, many thought that ISI was down and out, and the
insurgency was in its death knell. Instead, Omar al-Baghdadi came up with a
detailed and effective plan to get rid of rivals and co-opt others to gain back
its base. The main target was the Sahwa and tribes that had cost it so much.
Its “Strategic
Plan for Reinforcing the Political Position of the Islamic State” said that
the organization’s problems were due to the Awakening and Sahwa, and the
Americans turning the tribes against them. To rebound, ISI would mimic the U.S.
tactics and win back these groups by playing divide and conquer. Sahwa leaders
and sheikhs would be offered rewards for their cooperation, and those that
refused would be assassinated. At the same time, ISI planned to take advantage
of the U.S. withdrawal in 2011. It would work to recruit other insurgents
groups, would target the ISF hoping to drive it from areas to open space for
the militants to operate in, and launch a new wave of terrorism to put it back
in the media hoping to gain new recruits and backing. In the summer of 2009-10
for example, it carried out a series of massive bombings
in Baghdad aimed at Iraqi ministries. The Americans unwittingly helped as well
by releasing 20,000 prisoners that included much of the group’s current
leadership. Finally, it worked at proselytizing amongst Iraqis rather than
forcing its ideas upon the population like it had before. Omar al-Baghdadi
would be killed in 2010, but what he set in motion would succeed in bringing
ISI back from the dead.

ISI’s new leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi guided the group
through its next phase the second expansion from 2011-2013. Baghdadi stepped up
the campaign against the Sahwa and ISF. Many histories of the Islamic State
argue that the group rebuilt itself in Syria and then expanded back into Iraq.
In fact, ISI was already in the rebound in Iraq and took advantage of Syria to
expand and recruit. The boldness of the group was marked by the 2012 Breaking
Walls campaign that carried out prison breaks to release members, stepped
up its terrorist bombings, and retook areas it had lost. These events marked
Iraq’s return to a full-fledged insurgency.

That allowed Baghdadi to move into phase three decisive
action for the first time starting in 2013. That year Baghdadi claimed that he
had formed Al Nusra Front in Syria and then moved more directly into that war
leading to the new name the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The Soldiers’
Harvest campaign was launched in Iraq aimed at attacking the ISF and
seizing territory. ISIS then took over Fallujah
in early 2014 after tribes and other insurgent groups rose up against Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki when he shut down the Ramadi demonstration site. That
culminated with its summer offensive, which swept through Mosul, Tikrit, Hawija
and western Anbar. Baghdadi then announced the establishment of the caliphate,
which brought it support from around the world. While it hadn’t overthrown the
Iraqi government, it had created one of its own stretching across western and
northern Iraq into neighboring Syria. At the same time, the Islamic State as it
then became known expanded far past its capacity.

IS seemed to be riding high with its caliphate, but it was
actually heading for a fall that would return it to the first stage of
rebuilding once again. As soon as Baghdad recovered from its collapse in northern
Iraq and received the assistance of first Iran, and then more importantly the
United States and its coalition the tide against IS would slowly turn to near
collapse in Iraq. While IS would have one final victory when it took Ramadi in
the middle of 2015, after that the group would face defeat after defeat in
Salahaddin, Anbar, and Ninewa. Today, Mosul is on Baghdad’s hit list and could
be attacked this year. Many of the group’s main leaders such as spokesman Abu
Mohammed al-Adnani have been killed in air strikes. The group has seen the
writing on the wall, and is preparing to return to an insurgency once again.
Before his death, Adnani issued a statement in May 2016 saying that IS might
lose the land and cities it controlled and return to the desert, but it would
not be defeated. What that foretold was that IS was ready to withdraw and fight
another day just as it had after facing its previous greatest setback at the
hands of the Awakening, the U.S. Surge and Sahwa. The outlines of that strategy
are already apparent with its terrorist campaign in Baghdad. Again, this is
part of a political, military and propaganda effort to show that the group is
still capable of operations despite its territorial losses, and to challenge
the authority of the government. The effectiveness of these attacks was shown
in the summer of 2016 with the Karrada bombing that left over 500 casualties. There
was wide condemnation of the authorities and Iraqi forces afterwards for
letting such a catastrophe occur, highlighted by another car bomb in that same
neighborhood a few weeks later. At the same time, IS is rebuilding in the rural
areas and attempting to win back the tribes that they have once again lost the
support of. That can be seen in IS attacks upon the Ramadi, Fallujah and Tikrit
districts, which have all been freed over the last year or so, but the
militants have been able to re-infiltrate. IS also has bases in Diyala and the
rural towns in Baghdad to build upon. The reprisals the Hashd and Peshmerga
have carried out on Sunni civilians and towns, the lack of money to rebuild,
and the political battles for control of the freed areas provide other avenues
for IS to exploit.

Throughout its history, the Islamic State has shown great
adaptability, which is why it has survived for so long. Mao wrote that when the
enemy is strong the guerrillas retreat, and look for weak points to exploit.
That is what IS is doing now as it attempts its third rebuilding effort in
Iraq. It is quickly giving up territory hoping to fight another day, while
increasing its terrorist operations. It may never have another caliphate, but
that wont stop it from being a deadly insurgent force hoping to re-emerge and
expand once more when the opportunity presents itself. As Mao noted, a popular
war is a protracted one with ebbs and flows, and the Islamic State is in it for
the long haul.

SOURCES

Brock, Maj Gar, “Zarqawi’s Sfumato: Operational Art In
Irregular Warfare,” School of Advanced Military Studies, United States Army
Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 2013

Gordon, Michael and Trainor, General Bernard, The Endgame, The Inside Story Of The
Struggle For Iraq, From George W. Bush To Barack Obama, New York, Pantheon,
2012

About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. I have written for the Jamestown Foundation, Tom Ricks’ Best Defense at Foreign Policy and the Daily Beast, and was responsible for a chapter in the book Volatile Landscape: Iraq And Its Insurgent Movements. My work has been published in Iraq via NRT, AK News, Al-Mada, Sotaliraq, All Iraq News, and Ur News all in Iraq. I was interviewed on BBC Radio 5, Radio Sputnik, CCTV and TRT World News TV, and have appeared in CNN, the Christian Science Monitor, The National, Columbia Journalism Review, Mother Jones, PBS’ Frontline, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Institute for the Study of War, Radio Free Iraq, Rudaw, and others. I have also been cited in Iraq From war To A New Authoritarianism by Toby Dodge, Imagining the Nation Nationalism, Sectarianism and Socio-Political Conflict in Iraq by Harith al-Qarawee, ISIS Inside the Army of Terror by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassahn, The Rise of the Islamic State by Patrick Cocburn, and others. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com